Ultra-Tories

The Ultra-Tories were an extreme right-wing faction of the British Tory Party which existed from 1829 to 1834. The "Ultras" were formed by reactionary Tories who were opposed to Catholic emancipation; they supported parliamentary reform after 1829 on the ground that a more liberal franchise would result in a less liberal treatment of Catholics. Following the Great Reform Act of 1832, a section of Robert Peel's supporters supported remaining simply an aristocratic landed interest group opposing change. The rural "squirearchy" formed the backboneof the agriculturist movement of the 1830s and opposed Catholic emancipation, with their motto being "Protection, Protestantism, and no popeery." The Ultras' policy corresponded to the actual beliefs of a large section of the population, with a majority of the electorate believing in the preservation of traditional institutions, the monarchy, parliament, the Church, promogeniture, and the rights of landed and commercial property. However, many voters were not convinced that the new Conservative Party was capable of achieving the objective of keeping things more or less as they were, and the Tories' policy of cautious concession worried some who felt that it might lead to a revolution. Rather than take its stand on landed Toryism alone, the Conservative Party decided to seek alternatives such as allying with the dispossessed working-class against the northern "millocracy" and the middle-class (in the form of a Tory-Radical alliance) or continuing the liberal Toryism of the 1820s by accepting the Industrial Revolution, compromise with the forces of change, and adapt traditional institutions to the new social demands (a libertarian fiscal policy, the strengthening of the traditional constitution of Church, state, and land, and compromise with the middle-class). In 1834, most of the Ultra-Tories joined Robert Peel's new Conservative Party, although some irreconciliables refused to join its ranks.